1999

"Tweens are also a retailer's dream: consumers with a seemingly insatiable desire for the latest in everything, from Old Navy cargo pants to Limp Bizkit CDs. But to parents and teachers, they can also be a nightmare, aping the hair, clothes and makeup of celebrities twice their age while still throwing tantrums worthy of a 2-year-old."

". It was only the latest in a lifetime of anxieties. As little kids, tweens worried about being abducted by strangers and having their pictures ending up on milk cartons. Before they'd even been on a date, they'd heard all about AIDS."

"Not yet teens, but not quite kids, the 27 million tweens have huge market potential, and their idols have the shelf life of cotton candy. From "tha bomb" (coolest) to "played" (totally over)"

"Allie Terese Baron-Phillips, 10, of Tarzana, Calif., regularly tells her mother, Brenda Phillips, all the things she's worried about: homelessness, her nightly three hours of homework, the kids in her class who are already pairing off. "My life is really hectic right now," she says. "I'm already doing what some people in the 1800s weren't doing until they were full-grown adults. I get up at 6:30 every morning, go to school and have to rush through all my classes, come home and work on my homework, go to ice-skating lessons, watch a little TV, talk on the phone, do more homework and practice my violin. If I'm lucky, I get to sleep by 11. And then the entire ordeal starts again."

"The wrath of the tween is cruel and quick. Already in the cheapo CD bin: the brothers Hanson and sisters Spice."